While a console does need to be less multi task orientated than a pc. It is still an obvious strength of android. Even steam allows you to access steam in game and return to it to the game after using it(shift+tab). So you can chat, change settings and even browse online to find the walk-through or world map.
Yet you hit the ouya system button and it takes you....well somewhere. It seems really inconsistent at the moment. Sometimes the home page and sometimes the make page. Is it just an exit button? Because many games I played seem to use it that way. With no other way to exit.
Well and generally navigating is simply screwed. I hit back when discovering games and it takes me all the way to the home screen. When I just wanted to go back to stop viewing the current game and continue to look at other games. Now I need to go back into discovery and start over.
Apps seems to have vanished as far as I can tell. Which I though was a really cool thing that apps would be encouraged.
also it is weird that the sandbox does not have genres or any good search features. Same that notifications are put in the manage folder. When it is really something you want to be made aware of and easy to see. Rather than having to remember to just keep checking it all the time.
I know the "they are still working on it" argument will come up, but this is considered launch right now is it not?
I think they really put the launch way to early. Everything is still very very unorganised and buggy.
The system button it is up to individual developers to use it however. It does annoy me though that some games are inconsistent (for example Command Crisis: Callsign uses U for select and Y for back, whilst everything else, including the OUYA UI uses O and A). I currently have a big problem with The Ball because there just is not a way to exit it or get back to the main menu without completely turning the console off
The A button really should be your back button at all times. When browsing the store, if you're looking at the details of a specific game, A should return you back to whatever genre or category you were browsing. If it takes you back to the home page, fairly sure that's a bug
@SpoonThumb - By system button I mean hitting it twice quickly. A single hit of the system button is now just the menu button. So technically it should be the menu button.
This system menu call or whatever it is called(double press) is not up to the individual developers to implement. It should be the equivalent of shift+tab in steam.
@Evgiz - I kind of got the general feeling it was now. the kickstarter just says get it before the ouya hits stores. Nothing about while in development. Also the "not ready for players" warning has been removed. Also the eagerness of them to have games in the store for the 28th kind of suggests they feel it is a launch date. Also the fact that even pre-orders are in April really gives the feeling that june is not the launch date.
Even if its not called launch the system will be better by then. I do agree though, a lot of these issues should not have been here still.
The june launch is more important than this one IMO. The system will be opened to the public and not only the backers, and if the system remains as it is the OUYA will have a hard time.
I prefer to stay posititve tho
:D
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm! evgiz.net
They've said they have plans for online services sometime after retail launch, I'm sure those will show up in the system menu for any games that don't want to shut down when the player goes there. As for Apps, it's still there, it's the very top listing in "Genres", it currently has Twitch.tv in it. Sure it's not its own category on the front end, but I could see the reasoning behind that, it's a game system first and foremost.
"I know the "they are still working on it" argument will come up, but this is considered launch right now is it not?"
No, they've made it clear recently that while this is "a" launch, it is not "the" launch. They've said that the System Launcher is a work in progress that is going to be constantly improving over the next few months, and been talking about this as an opportunity for Kickstarterers to get early access to the system. Personally I've been considering this a "soft launch" even before they started hinting that this wasn't considered the full launch - there's only going to be 60,000 owners plus a few early preorders, the system isn't actively being marketed to end users yet, and this audience is going to be in large part different from the audience that buys the system in retail stores on a whim.
SpoonThumb said:
I currently have a big problem with The Ball because there just is not a way to exit it or get back to the main menu without completely turning the console off
In that case, it shouldn't have been approved by OUYA. I don't care if it's a high-profile title or not. Doesn't The Ball also have the Unity input lag problem?
It's this lack of oversight that's going to give OUYA a bad name. Input lag is one thing but being able to exit the game is one of the basic checks that all games should be subject to as part of the approval process.
Ok, looks like I was just being retarded and you can just double tap the system button to get back to the OUYA home screen. Still can't find a way to get back to The Ball main menu though
Ok, looks like I was just being retarded and you can just double tap the system button to get back to the OUYA home screen. Still can't find a way to get back to The Ball main menu though
That escape hatch works for all games. But you have to relaunch it AFAIK. So it's currently not really a "pause" more than it is a "force quit" :)
A simple additional menu item: RESUME "The Ball" would probably suffice. And any other game launched instead would simply take it's place.
Ok, looks like I was just being retarded and you can just double tap the system button to get back to the OUYA home screen. Still can't find a way to get back to The Ball main menu though
Felt your pain, made a thread about it the other day and talked about how there was no way to exit games, thought it was hold to exit on dev consoles, whoops!
In all honestly, I really like Tripwire's games, but I feel the OUYA port of The Ball was very rushed, the game suffers immensely in many places.
It is annoying that the OUYA team has not discussed any of this kind of stuff with developers. As this is the stuff developers should need to know. It is not like it is that hard to close an activity from within itself. Even using native-activity.
I think the game submission review guidelines should be stricter....
As it is now you have what I feel are alot of unfinished games, they should adopt something like how microsoft tested their XBLA games.
There's one game in particular I played a couple of nights ago that definitely needs "sending back". Having to use touchpad to navigate menus because there is no controller support, and the constant drifting once in-game due to no accounting for stick deadzones. Wouldn't take much time/effort on the developer's part, but right now, just gives ammunition to people accusing the OUYA of being purely crappy mobile ports.
However, maybe give more weighting to the downloads/playtime/thumbs ups of developers in the store when ranking the games or getting them out of sandbox
I think the game submission review guidelines should be stricter....
As it is now you have what I feel are alot of unfinished games, they should adopt something like how microsoft tested their XBLA games.
There's one game in particular I played a couple of nights ago that definitely needs "sending back". Having to use touchpad to navigate menus because there is no controller support, and the constant drifting once in-game due to no accounting for stick deadzones. Wouldn't take much time/effort on the developer's part, but right now, just gives ammunition to people accusing the OUYA of being purely crappy mobile ports.
However, maybe give more weighting to the downloads/playtime/thumbs ups of developers in the store when ranking the games or getting them out of sandbox
I know exactly which game you mean... It feels like that peple dont take the OUYA seriously enough.
I will not be rushing my game, I want to polish it so that people get the best experience they can get.
And I meant XBLA games not XBLIG, XBLA games have strict guidelines that they have to adhere before they can be published on the marketplace.
I remember these guidelines to be floating around the internet.
Please PM me any game you feel might have a technical reason to be resubmitted for a fix (i.e. still using touchpad menu, etc.), crashes, etc. We're dialing in the right amount of review and guidelines, that's what this unveil is partly designed to help us with.
@Dreamwriter - that forum was discussing the lack of a pause button to be used in game, and that people didn't want to have to send menu stuff to an external activity. I have no idea if they discussed what was going to happen with the system menu. There are just way too many pages and only small comments from actual ouya team throughout.
I agree there should be more clear rules on what an app needs to pass. I feel the only guidlines currently are pretty small things like what buttons should be used for.
@SpoonThumb - By system button I mean hitting it twice quickly. A single hit of the system button is now just the menu button. So technically it should be the menu button.
This system menu call or whatever it is called(double press) is not up to the individual developers to implement. It should be the equivalent of shift+tab in steam.
@Evgiz - I kind of got the general feeling it was now. the kickstarter just says get it before the ouya hits stores. Nothing about while in development. Also the "not ready for players" warning has been removed. Also the eagerness of them to have games in the store for the 28th kind of suggests they feel it is a launch date. Also the fact that even pre-orders are in April really gives the feeling that june is not the launch date.
They have stated the opposite. The mentioned that the real launch date is retail launch. but that they had multiple launches, for different things to accomplish with each.
greeniekin
Posts: 92Member
Comments
The A button really should be your back button at all times. When browsing the store, if you're looking at the details of a specific game, A should return you back to whatever genre or category you were browsing. If it takes you back to the home page, fairly sure that's a bug
Website
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
So technically it should be the menu button.
This system menu call or whatever it is called(double press) is not up to the individual developers to implement. It should be the equivalent of shift+tab in steam.
@Evgiz -
I kind of got the general feeling it was now. the kickstarter just says get it before the ouya hits stores. Nothing about while in development. Also the "not ready for players" warning has been removed.
Also the eagerness of them to have games in the store for the 28th kind of suggests they feel it is a launch date. Also the fact that even pre-orders are in April really gives the feeling that june is not the launch date.
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
They've said they have plans for online services sometime after retail launch, I'm sure those will show up in the system menu for any games that don't want to shut down when the player goes there. As for Apps, it's still there, it's the very top listing in "Genres", it currently has Twitch.tv in it. Sure it's not its own category on the front end, but I could see the reasoning behind that, it's a game system first and foremost.
"I know the "they are still working on it" argument will come up, but this is considered launch right now is it not?"
No, they've made it clear recently that while this is "a" launch, it is not "the" launch. They've said that the System Launcher is a work in progress that is going to be constantly improving over the next few months, and been talking about this as an opportunity for Kickstarterers to get early access to the system. Personally I've been considering this a "soft launch" even before they started hinting that this wasn't considered the full launch - there's only going to be 60,000 owners plus a few early preorders, the system isn't actively being marketed to end users yet, and this audience is going to be in large part different from the audience that buys the system in retail stores on a whim.
In that case, it shouldn't have been approved by OUYA. I don't care if it's a high-profile title or not. Doesn't The Ball also have the Unity input lag problem?
Website
In all honestly, I really like Tripwire's games, but I feel the OUYA port of The Ball was very rushed, the game suffers immensely in many places.
Nexus Game Studio | @ NexusGameStudio
Actually, there was an entire thread on it, it's how it got the way it is, through discussion with developers. http://forums.ouya.tv/discussion/51/pause-button/p1
There's one game in particular I played a couple of nights ago that definitely needs "sending back". Having to use touchpad to navigate menus because there is no controller support, and the constant drifting once in-game due to no accounting for stick deadzones. Wouldn't take much time/effort on the developer's part, but right now, just gives ammunition to people accusing the OUYA of being purely crappy mobile ports.
As for peer review, check here: http://forums.ouya.tv/discussion/652/peer-review/p1
However, maybe give more weighting to the downloads/playtime/thumbs ups of developers in the store when ranking the games or getting them out of sandbox
Website
I have no idea if they discussed what was going to happen with the system menu. There are just way too many pages and only small comments from actual ouya team throughout.
I agree there should be more clear rules on what an app needs to pass. I feel the only guidlines currently are pretty small things like what buttons should be used for.